Forgiving
by ringanybells
Summary: Set during A Trip to the Dentist; What if Logan hadn't left when Veronica closed the door in his face? How could everything have been different if he'd just ignored her simple request to leave and tried talking to her again? LoVe


Logan stared at the closed door. He knew he should leave. No man in their right mind would open that door after Veronica Mars had accused them of rape. But to walk away now, to not dispute that accusation with every bit of strength he had, would be too much like admittance. So he reached for the knob, twisting it gently. He was mildly shocked when the door opened. Veronica must be very distracted to have not realized the door was unlocked.

He'd only seen the inside of her apartment a few times, when he'd been asking for her help looking for his mother. The lights in the living room were turned off, so he moved down the hallway, where she'd disappeared one night to get her laptop, assuming he'd find her room. At the hallway's end was a door slightly ajar. He pushed it the rest of the way to find a truly heart wrenching sight.

Collapsed in a heap on the floor, still wrapped in her robe, was Veronica Mars, the girl who could make grown men tremble with fear. Logan took a second to absorb the scene, debating the best course of action. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to pick her up and hold her, but he still remembered the look of fear she'd had in her eyes just moments before at the door. The look she'd gotten when he'd stepped forward to comfort her, to touch her.

But the desire to comfort her overrode his sense of self preservation and he silently prayed she would not fight him off. She might not want to admit it, but she needed someone else to be strong for her right now. He was pretty sure there wouldn't be anyone else. So he knelt next to her, placing his hand on her shoulder gently. She cringed slightly, and then looked up. It took a moment for recognition to spread across her face. Instead of the smack he'd expected, she threw her arms around him.

Her sudden weight caught him slightly off guard, causing him to fall back, pulling Veronica into his lap. Before she could pull back, he put his arms around her, moving her into a sitting position. He placed his hands on her back and held her, telling her everything would work out. He didn't offer the hollow _everything will be fine_ that he knew was a lie. Everything would not be fine, because she had been raped and nothing could change that. But she could and would find out who did this, and then she would be able to look herself in the mirror and know it was not going to destroy her.

She cried against his shoulder for several minutes, deep, gut-wrenching sobs that hurt him to listen to. Then between the gasps for air, two small words slipped out, "I'm sorry." Logan let it go for a minute, to make sure she was ready to talk. When no more sobs escaped her, he spoke.

"It's alright, Veronica."

She pulled back immediately. "No, it's not."

"I didn't mean this." Logan was slightly tongue tied. He hadn't meant to say her situation was alright, he'd meant to imply she didn't need to apologize for anything. "I just, I meant you don't have to be sorry, for anything."

She'd known what he meant, but it was still not true. She'd known Logan since age twelve. She could still remember the night about three months before Lilly's death when the Kanes had been out of town. She'd gone over Logan's for a few hours, and they'd sat in his room watching an SVU marathon. After one particularly gruesome episode, he'd shivered. When she had asked what was wrong, he'd looked at her like she was slightly crazy. "Doesn't watching that scare you at all? To think there are people out there who could actually do that?" She hadn't really thought about it, it never really occurred to her that those things could happen in her world. She'd shrugged her shoulders, to indicate her own naïveté. He'd taken a second then put his arm around her shoulder, "I guess that's why you keep me around, Mars, because someone has got to protect you from the world."

Logan would never have hurt her, not like that. Calling her names was one thing, even the occasional lude gesture was fine. When they'd been friends they'd done those kinds of things all the time, mostly because it was an inside joke to the four of them that Duncan and Veronica were still virgins while Lilly and Logan could both be housemates at the Playboy Mansion. When Logan had teased her about those things after Lilly's death, it had been his way of reminding her that though they were no longer friends, he still knew her, and had known reminders like that would sting most. But he had never physically harmed her, she knew he wouldn't. Her accusation minutes before had been intensely unfair, launched from that very bitter place that still hated him for asking her to choose.

"Yes, I do. I know you didn't do this, Logan. No matter how much you may hate me, you don't have it in you to do this to a girl, any girl."

He was silent a second, glad she realized that he couldn't have hurt her. "I don't hate you, Ronnie."

Her old nickname brought a chuckle. "You did. But it doesn't matter, I let emotions take over and I forgot the first rule of being a detective."

"Oh really, and what's that?"

"Know your suspects. If the guy you're looking at passes out at the sight of blood, he probably didn't murder his fiancé and then move her bloody corpse to the back of his trunk to dump it." She looked into his eyes, "If the person you're accusing can't watch TV without crying over the victim, he didn't rape you"

A smile crossed Logan's lips as he recalled the night she was thinking of. He'd grown up in a house of violence, so his threshold for gruesome things was pretty strong. But as he'd watched TV with this innocent little blonde next to him, he couldn't help but cringe at the things they were seeing, especially because one of the victims had looked so much like her. "It doesn't mean I'm not responsible. I never should have allowed you to become a target; I never should have turned my back on you." He'd been at Shelly's party, had been in the house with Veronica the night she'd been raped. He couldn't remember much of that evening, beyond leaving with some freshman skank. But if he hadn't drawn a line for Veronica, no one would have dared mess with her.

"Logan, I was a target before you ended things. The day my dad accused Jake Kane pretty much guaranteed I'd have enemies. I wasn't your responsibility."

"But you were my friend. What kind of person allows their friends to be treated like that?"

"There's nothing you can do about it now, Logan. The past is past." She stood up, sensing the conversation was about to become a show and tell, and wanting to have the dominant position.

Logan let her stand, but stayed on the ground himself. "That's not true. What happened still matters."

"Let me guess. This is the part where you want me to spill my guts about what happened that night?" She crossed her arms, hoping some part of him would realize her reluctance to talk, but knowing it was unlikely.

His response shocked her, "Only if you want to." He had no right to demand answers and no privileges to hear them. But he did want to help her in any way that he could, even if that meant allowing her to taser him just for kicks.

She took a deep breath. If he'd said yes, she would have kicked him out. If he'd said no, she would have asked him to leave. But putting the power back in her hands showed her he really did care. "I don't know, Logan," she admitted, one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do.

"It's ok, Veronica. You don't have to tell me now. I just want you to know I'm here for you."

She let a small smile grace her lips at his density. "That's not what I meant, Logan. I meant I don't know what happened. The whole night is pretty much a blur."

"Oh, sorry. Do you remember any of it?"

"I remember showing up. I remember seeing you, with some girl, I remember getting a glimpse of Duncan. Then as I was walking out to the patio, I remember being handed a drink. Beyond that, it's all kind of hazy, at least until the next morning. That part I remember vividly."

Despite his best efforts to stop, Logan's mind ran through several scenarios of how things could have happened that night. All of which made his stomach churn. Veronica watched Logan cringe in his own personal hell for a moment, reaffirming her faith that he had not done this to her. In spite of his better judgment, Logan asked his next question, "What happened in the morning?"

A blush of shame colored Veronica's cheeks. "I woke up in the guest room downstairs. My dress was torn, my underwear were missing, there was blood…" She stopped, trying to choke back a sob as the image came back into her head from that morning.

Logan, too, needed a moment to overcome the images now present in his head. "Ronnie, why didn't you go to Lamb? He might be a complete idiot but he is sheriff, he could have ordered a DNA test or something."

A mirthless chuckle escaped Veronica's lips. "I did go to Lamb. He laughed and told me to get some spine."

Veronica didn't miss the anger that filled Logan's eyes, or the clench of his fist. She was touched that Logan cared, even if it was a little after the fact. "Relax Logan. I don't need Don Lamb to fight my battles. Or to find my rapist."

He was proud of her. He couldn't think of another girl who could have not only survived all that had happened to her in the last year and a half but be stronger because of it. "What do you need, Veronica?"

She was slightly taken aback. She hadn't expected him to offer help, not beyond holding her while she made a complete fool of herself. But she and Logan had begun building a bridge the last few weeks, and though she had just about burnt it down earlier at the door, she wasn't going to let it completely collapse if he still wanted it. "I need to find out what happened that night. You have no idea what it's like to…to…" She had only ever told Lamb about that night. It was extremely difficult to tell Logan. She was so terrified that he wouldn't be able to take it, and that he'd leave, breaking what was left of her heart.

Logan reached out for her, desperately wanting to hold her and erase the look of fear and pain in her eyes. It was hard to imagine that anyone could have looked at Veronica Mars, the old Ronnie, who blushed at the slightest hint of sex, and then done this to her.

"Ssh, Ronnie, relax. Right now, just focus on you. When you're ready, we'll go back over that night, see what we can remember. We'll piece the whole thing together and at school tomorrow, we'll talk to whoever will be able to answer the questions we have." He squeezed her shoulders, letting her know she wasn't alone. "We'll find out who did this. And then, I'll make them pay." He hoped she wouldn't argue with that last part, because he would hate to have to go against her wishes, but in this case, he wasn't sure he'd be able to stop.

Feeling reassured for the first time in months, Veronica let Logan hold her. She breathed a sigh of relief. So much had changed in the last year. She'd lost Lilly, her mom, her virginity; her life had practically torn at the seams. But standing here, in Logan's arms, she felt that just maybe, everything would be okay, one day.


End file.
